


we live in a beautiful world

by postfixrevolution



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Stylistically Lowercase, Vignettes, and happy birthday to my birthday buddy erica iLY YOU'RE SO SWEET AND AMAZING AN D TALENTED, not quiiite angst but maybe a little melancholy, sorry about my abuse of parentheses (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: leo has theorized that the weather has at least some correlation to corrin's mood. there’s no certain way to prove it, but he thinks about it occasionally, nonetheless.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it's been so long; I swear I've half forgotten how to write.... T_T But it feels admittedly good to be back, especially if it's for a birthday fic to a good, kind, and thoroughly amazing friend!! I'm grateful that we met, Erica, and I hope I can wish you a happy birthday again, for the years to come~ ^^
> 
> Title (but not really the fic) inspired by Coldplay's song _Don't Panic_.
> 
> Unbeta-ed, but spell checked, so forgive any little mistakes, and I hope you enjoy!

the soft pink petals on the trees of corrin's deeprealm castle give her away. 

.

the day leo first arrived in this otherworldly fortress, there was golden sun spilling from the sky in an abundance that nohr has never known. (that even he has never known, with his tomes upon tomes of knowledge.)

the walkways and buildings were built of the same dark nohrian grey stone that made up castle krakenburg and the northern fortress, but the sunlight that poured down around him set the thousands of pastel cherry petals alight. the sight is emblazoned in leo's mind, and past the small stab of jealousy, he still can't quash the awe he feels every time the sunlight embraces his warmth-starved skin and sets the fortress's cherry trees ablaze. (on days he can think past the niggling jealousy, he can't help but sympathize with his once-sister.) 

he knows nothing of hoshido, but if it were even half as brilliant as this fortress, he would miss it too.

.

leo is surprised to wake up to rain one day. (it looks exactly like rain in nohr: grey clouds and grey sky as far as the eye can see.) it soaks through his tunic as he runs from his tent to the mess hall, and he wonders if hoshido ever got this cold, or if it was just nohr trying to take back the title of  _ home  _ in its once-princess’s mind. 

his tunic is half way to drenched by the time he reaches the mess hall’s heavy, oaken doors (and yet, he does not shiver, not when nohr has battered his skin with cold a hundred times more relentless, eating away with pallor he may have and instilling frost in his veins) earthen eyes turn back toward the deeprealm around him one last time, and when they catch a flash of white, they stop. 

corrin stands on the wooden balcony of her tree house with fingers tight around the railing, eyes closed and head tilted up toward the clouds, as if she wants the rain to swallow her up. she is soaked, winter-white hair falling limply down her shoulders, and leo muses to himself that she already has been. (and she looks no less captivating for it.) 

a gust of wind shakes the falling sheets of rain, and corrin opens her eyes. she does not see him, but wipes the water off her eyelashes and he sees her shoulders fall with a sigh. the cold wind bites at his skin, but he still does not shiver. (leo wonders if the sigh is one of nostalgia, for either hoshido or nohr. he does not think on it much past that.)

she stays on her balcony. leo goes inside and lets the warm, flavorless soup that they serve warm him from the inside out.

.

it keeps raining for days, even though the land outside the deeprealms they travel have only dull, dry cloud cover at the most. 

leo does not see corrin alone on her balcony again after that first day, but the image does not leave him nonetheless. he could not see what thoughts hid themselves in the crimson of her irises, nor what worries urged the heavy sigh from her lips, but he still wonders. 

(the wonder eats at him especially when he does not see her stay for dessert on rainy nights, when the few berries people are brave enough to pick in the midst of the unending rain are used to make the same berry cobbler he remembers helping her steal from the kitchen as children, from right under the kitchen staff’s noses.) 

she still smiles all the same when spoken to.

.

on the fourth day of rain, he leaves the weapons shop after his shift and sees her just across the nohrian stone walkway, sitting underneath a cherry blossom tree and playing listlessly with the fallen petals. her crimson eyes dart up the moment she hears the door creak open, and their eyes lock.

“leo,” she says simply. she has not called him  _ little brother _ since she had returned from hoshido. (he has wondered how much a few days could change a person. he has wondered and still does, even though he has catalogued every change he could since that day.) the slight widening of her eyes denotes surprise.

“corrin,” he greets her in reply. (he does not mind the ease with which her name rolls from his lips.) “it’s raining. why are you sitting about like this?”

at that, she laughs softly, and leo is reminded of her heavy sigh and heaven-turned eyes. there is no evidence of it in her face now.

“i could say the same to you,” she repartees. her crimson eyes shine, and leo suddenly realizes that he has been standing in the rain. “sit with me. the tree blocks out most of the rain.”

he cannot say no to her (and he’s already soaked, he has nothing else to lose), and ends up underneath a cherry blossom tree in the rain, the wet ground soaking through his trousers and the occasional raindrop soaking into his hair. she is just as worse for wear.

“i’m surprised you haven’t gotten sick yet,” he comments, rolling his earthen brown eyes.

“nohr was worse,” she replies lightly. he does not need to voice his acceptance for them to agree.

“did it rain this much there?” he finds himself asking. (hoshido is always on his mind, somehow, be it through battle strategies or the mesmerizing brilliance of cherry petals under the sun.) she gives him an undecipherable look.

all of a sudden, the sky is alight with blinding white, and thunder follows soon after. leo watches corrin pick up a soggy cherry petal and tear it absently in half. 

“it’s been awhile since i’ve hear that noise,” she laughs. “it’s almost kind of nostalgic, in a way.”

corrin leans back against the trunk of the cherry blossom tree and does not answer his question. he copies her, and the warmth radiating off her arm remains a constant until they are soaked to the bone and silas finds them, shoving towels into their arms and urging them to come inside.

(she smiles at the knight just as she had at him, and leo can’t tell if she is sad or not. he is reminded that her moods used to be so much more apparent before hoshido.)

.

when it finally stops raining, he finds corrin standing on her balcony again. there is a cherry blossom in her hands. he stands beneath the balcony and calls out her name. a smile blossoms on her lips at the sound of it.

“leo, catch!” she tells him, and looses the flower in her hand, letting it drift lazily down to where he is. he catches it gently in his spindly fingers, and the petals are as soft as the satin of his old formalwear. he gazes at it for a moment, then turns his eyes back to her. (she has not stopped smiling, and he and his heart, the rapidly beating thing, are both glad to see it.) 

he runs up her stairs two at a time to meet her, and he has no other reason for tucking the flower into her hair than wanting to compare the silken feel of both against the uncalloused pads of his fingers. she gives him an indecipherable look, and runs tentative fingers along the back of leo’s hand and the flower. he does little else but smile at her. she smiles softly back, then turns her gaze back toward the deeprealm before them.

“i don’t remember,” she says eventually. he does not have a chance to ask what she has forgotten before she continues. “if it rained this much in hoshido. it was late spring when i was there.” she turns back to look at him, an empty smile on her lips. “you were curious, right?”

he looks at her. 

“i was,” he tells her carefully, unaware of why she brought the topic back up. (not that he minds much. he has long come to terms with the oft repeated reminder that his curiosity will be the death of him. if he dies learning, it will be a death he won’t regret.) she exhales a quiet laugh, and gently pulls the cherry blossom out of her hair.

“i remember the cherry blossom trees the most,” corrin whispers, stroking the pale pink petals of the flower in her hands. “the flowers were softer there. maybe it’s because these have been so drowned out by the rain. it was like the silk on the gown elise got for her 18th birthday, and as soft as you imagine a cloud is.” her crimson eyes shine, (he finds himself staring at her instead of the plant in her hands) and she holds the flower out for him to feel.

leo reaches out tentatively, and then finds his fingers wrapping gently around hers instead of the flower. her crimson eyes snap suddenly to his. (he pretends not to hear her gasp.)

“sounds enchanting,” he tells her softly. she stares at him for an indefinite moment.

“it is,” she whispers back.

.

leo keeps the cherry blossom that she had given him that day. he presses the silken flower between the pages of brynhildr, and he does not tell corrin a word.

.

it does not rain again until they set foot into hoshidan soil, a good month after leo had arrived. they had fought off a small force of hoshidan border guard the moment they arrived. 

no one had made it out alive. 

hoshido did not yet know they were there.

(an invaluable tactical advantage, and yet the ease with which they were able to take on the small, unsuspecting border force haunts him long after the blood has been washed off his armor.)

when the army retreated back into their deeprealm to deal with injuries, it was already pouring. leo, having escaped the battle largely unscathed, watched from his quarters as soldiers rushed through the downpour to the infirmary or their quarters for a well deserved rest. as the last of their forces shuffle in, he sees corrin step through the gates, white armor stained in shades of brown and scarlet. she bids her aides a quick farewell, standing listlessly in the rain as they head off to their quarters. leo expects her to do the same, but she just stands there, head angled toward the ground. 

he has finally forced the chill of the rain from his skin, warm and dry clothes on his back and the dull ache of battle still in his bones, but leo walks out of his tent to approach her anyway. (upon looking back at it, he had no concrete reason for doing so.)

“corrin,” he begins softly. she does not look up. the rain has began to wash the blood off her armor, and the puddle at her feet is stained red. he rolls words around in his mouth. “was it like you remembered?” he asks eventually. “the sun, the sky, the air.”

she look up at him, eyelashes wet with rainwater and tears.

“ _ exactly _ ,” she replies shakily.

corrin falls against him suddenly, arms tight around his back, and he holds her carefully. she is soaked in icy rainwater, but wherever they meet, she feels as warm as the hoshidan sun on his skin.

.

thankfully, the rain does not last longer than a day. it is blazingly hot the next day, and leo forgoes his armor for more casual wear. the soldiers injured in yesterday’s battle are still healing. he exits the infirmary after checking in with elise to find her across the nohrian stone walkway again, sitting beneath the shade of a cherry blossom tree and playing absently with the fallen flower petals. (he wonders if hoshidan cherry trees also bloomed year round, of if it was just the magic of the deeprealm that kept them constantly awash with soft pink blossoms.) as the door swings open, her eyes fly up and meet his.

“leo,” she greets him, same as last time, remnants of surprise in her crimson eyes. 

“corrin,” he replies easily, not wasting any time in sitting beside her. he pretends not to see the pleased smile that flits across her face as he does. “it’s warm today,” he tells her. (leo has theorized that the weather has at least some correlation to her mood. there’s no certain way to prove it, but he thinks about it occasionally, nonetheless.)

“i can tell,” corrin laughs lightly. the sound of it is pleasant. “your face is flushed from the heat.”

“as is yours,” he shoots back, exhaling a quick laugh of his own. (he ignores the fact that the shade beneath the cherry blossom is too cool for such a thing.) she flushes a shade darker. “i quite like the warmth, though. i can see why you miss hoshido.”

she gives him an odd look, a slight purse to her lips (the same pink as the cherry petals, he notices absently), before looking away.

“there’s nothing really to miss,” she says simply. “everything i need is all already here.”

she does not elaborate, just leans wordlessly against his arm. leo wonders if she was referring to him or herself. he looks at the shady ground around them and finds a fallen flower resting by his leg. carefully, he picks it up, and without a word, tucks it into her silky winter-white hair. (they are equally as soft, he decides, the pale pink cherry petals and her gently curling hair.) 

corrin does not say a word as he does, shifting to rest her head her head on his shoulder. he can see her soft grin in profile and can’t help the smile that pulls up at his own lips. (leo finds that, for him, everything he needs is already here, too.) he leans his head against hers and feels content.


End file.
